Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

How about a. Just keeping the graphics or a copy of it (That should compress space needed at least 10:1)b. Developing the app that would recognize the cover (web cam?) and play the correct song fromwhatever-fy?

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

I have these and they are fantastic. You preserve the album art and back tray insert but use 1/4 the space (if not less). If you need to resell and someone wants a jewel case you can always pop it in one.http://www.spacesavingsleeves.com/

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

Could I live without the CDs (assuming I ever get around to ripping them all, which is unlikely)? Yes, easily. Zero aestheic pleasure in those small discs, bad artwork and lousy-plastic (was that compulsory? part of the standard?) cases? Easily. Wouldn't miss them at all.

Could I give or sell away my modest collection of vinyl LPs, even though they may never be played again, and many of them are unplayable? No: my soul would veto that one!

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

Zero aestheic pleasure in those small discs, bad artwork and lousy-plastic (was that compulsory? part of the standard?) cases? Easily. Wouldn't miss them at all.

I think it is a "human" thing where any real object (even lousy plastic) that can be hold is automatically given higher value (also monetary) as opposed to some "abstract" stored on disk. That could also be a valid (only?) reason for people to still search for LPs.

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

You realize that, at least in the USA, ripping the CD's and then selling the CD's while keeping the ripped files is a violation of the copyright law. You might be unlikely to be caught, but it is illegal.

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

Maybe it's my age, but there's still a lingering distrust of computers somewhere in my subconscious. Although the entire collection is ripped to lossless, I've lost a few and given some away, but I have never sold a CD. I still feel that the inventor of the jewel-case deserves some kind of punishment, though.

In my younger days, I did sell quite a lot of my LPs, but that was out of financial desperation. Luckily, most of the ones that I sold were awful!

The spindle solution is tempting. I might free up quite a lot of space that way.

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

Zero aestheic pleasure in those small discs, bad artwork and lousy-plastic (was that compulsory? part of the standard?) cases? Easily. Wouldn't miss them at all.

I think it is a "human" thing where any real object (even lousy plastic) that can be hold is automatically given higher value (also monetary) as opposed to some "abstract" stored on disk. That could also be a valid (only?) reason for people to still search for LPs.

We had a thread on the subjective reasons that people like LPs. Without LPs, perhaps a CD is better than nothing. We get some artwork, and maybe some useful or enjoyable reading if there is a booklet.

Maybe it's my age, but there's still a lingering distrust of computers somewhere in my subconscious. Although the entire collection is ripped to lossless, I've lost a few and given some away, but I have never sold a CD. I still feel that the inventor of the jewel-case deserves some kind of punishment, though.

In my younger days, I did sell quite a lot of my LPs, but that was out of financial desperation. Luckily, most of the ones that I sold were awful!

The spindle solution is tempting. I might free up quite a lot of space that way.

Your distrust of computers is absolutely healthy. Distrust your own hard discs, even if RAID, and distrust "cloud" storage even more! Keep backups: at least two, with one "off-site." I speak as a retired IT manager. Of course, age may come into it for me too: I retired before the cloud salesmen had a chance to try and get to me!

I was in a major flood back in December. There are quite a few CDs and some DVDs for which the booklets were just a nasty soggy mess. We just chucked all those cases out. it is a loss of real and useful information about the music and the musicians.

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

I was at a friends' place a couple of days ago, and an entire wall of his living room is floor to ceiling fully stacked CD shelves. He insists on playing them on his old Technics CD player, he doesn't want to rip them. Probably for the same reason why some people like LPs; when he puts on an album, he always listens to the whole thing, all the way through.

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

I was at a friends' place a couple of days ago, and an entire wall of his living room is floor to ceiling fully stacked CD shelves. He insists on playing them on his old Technics CD player, he doesn't want to rip them. Probably for the same reason why some people like LPs; when he puts on an album, he always listens to the whole thing, all the way through.

I'm the same way, except with a giant chest of drawers full of CDs and an NAD player. They're all ripped, I just prefer to look through my physical collection and fondle instead of searching through text on the squeezebox..

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

I listen to full albums, but when I rip a CD that is the last time I touch it. I store them all in a CD rack so I can prove ownership if needed and have a hard backup just in case something totally bizarre happens. It would require a comet to wipe out this city to destroy all my digital music though. I don't distrust computers so much as I know how they work and their limitations, and therefore plan for them. My media (FLAC) is stored on a fault detecting and correcting filesystem with full redundancy (ZFS in a striped mirror set). That is then replicated to 2 different USB drives using different versions of ZFS, one kept on-site and the other rotated out to my parent's house monthly. I expect hard drives to develop bit errors over time and fail randomly. It would take a very improbable set of circumstances to destroy the data on my ZFS pools. But, just in case that happens I have 2 complete backups with one offsite. And if all else fails I still have the CDs. To be honest though, they'll never be needed again.

Re: How selling off your +900 CD collection sounds like.

All this somehow reminds me of a British TV documentary/experiment I saw several years ago, where these two fellows from an "uncivilized" (what a mean word!) African indigenous tribe were brought in to the UK to live, Wife Swap-style, among two different families - a wealthier one in the countryside and a suburban middle-class one.

One of their remarks that struck me as revealing was that, regardless of the families' backgrounds/surroundings, they both commented on how white people 'gathered' things they didn't have any practical use for (ie, collectibles and decorations); whereas in their tribes, they only gathered stuff for utilitarian purposes.